The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1887-07-13
TOUNTaIN ROBBERS.
Their Bloody Deeds--Travelers Who Have
Disappeared.

Disappeared.
In Putnam county, Tennessee, before
the war, for seventy-tiye years, road
within three miles of Cookevile, leading
from Louisville, Kentucky, through
down into Georgia and South Carolina,
was known as the kentucky stock road,
and was at that time the principal high
way for traders between the two sections.
Planters, slave dealers and stock men
would drive their negroes, mules, ETC.,
down to the southern market, returning
with the money from their sale.
Such particles were frequently missing
very mysteriously, no trace of them ever
being found. The road ran through a
wild, thinly settled mountain country.
The stopping places, or dwellings where
a traveller could get shelter, frequently
were thirty or forty miles apart, and IS
recent Investigations show, were kept by
robbers and murderers of the worst de-
scription, who for years followed this
business Of wholesale robbery and mur-
der. About thirty years ago 4 man, who
is now citizen of Cooke, found skele-
ton at the entrance to a cave, but no fur
ther investigation was ever made until
couple OF years ago, and it was left for
stranger to make discoveries that cast
in the shade all stories of like descrip-
tion, where the writer finds his terrible
characters only in his own brain.
4 party was organized under the lead
ership of h1r. Ferd kincaid to explore
the cave where the skeleton was found
thirty years ago. Back on the mountain
side about ore-half mile from one OF
the notorious stopping places described,
the entrance to the cave was formed. 4
hole, something like a well, going
strai ight down thirty-fve feet, was first
passed through, and then the cave opens
into large caverns, with a downward
course under the mountain. At the bot
tom of the shaft the party found human
bones, and with little digging in the
debris that had accumulated at this
point, unearthed about sixty skeletons
Of men who have boeu murdered and
thrown down this hole. Some skulls
were found with bullet holes through
them, others being mashed with an axe
or instrument of that hind.
Old citizens now living in this vicinity
say that the keepers of these dens would
keep track OF the travellers when theJ
passed through with stock, and on their
return they would be almost certain to
disappear. The robbers were even so
bold they would take the clothing and
saddles and horses of their victims and
use them publicly. They would get a
man drunk, if possible, and, as whiskey
was plentiful and the custom of drinking
common, it was no hard matter TO do,
then in their drunken stupor kill, rob
and throw their bodies il the hole, and
without doubt many men, as this fearful
disclosure proves, never returned to their
homes, and anxious friends waited and
watched and wondered why they re-
turned not.
Not far of, by the side OF the road
still st::ads a house. The walls OF one
:ooL IRE stained and spotted with human
blood. Above, in the mountains, about
twenty miles, vas still a worse place, il
possible, than this. Another case !:
there, ard would, if investigated, repeat
the sickening story. The people are
much excited over this discovery, a&
many descendants OF this robber gang
are still living all through Putnam coun.
ty. But dead men tell no tales, and
The history of these fearful crimes vii
never be known.
!